One flew over a cuckoo's nest..

One flew over a cuckoo's nest..One still does fly over the cuckoo's nest..But..

Rewind 20 years.

It is 8 am. You have been pushed out of bed, so you don't miss your school bus. You drag yourself out of bed and get ready, cursing the schooling system, but run through the gates, just in time for the prayer. You squeeze into your class line, not really bothering if you're the shortest one, but at the end of the line (Heck, you still got there!). The crowd drawls, while you gaze at the clear skies above. And there it is , the providence of nature, the birds and the proof of their washroom routines clearly not in place as a splat on your shirt. You get home by 4 pm, to be cursed by your poor mother who will have to scrub off the stains from your shirt and get out to play. 6:30 pm and its time for you to get to homework, while you see them going home, ask your mom innocent ingenuous questions about their nests, their nestlings, are told some flimsy fables, to shut you up. You go to bed, reading fairy tales and parables containing parrots, crows and pitchers and if you belong to a religiously inclined household, Jatayu's tales of his attempts to rescue Sita.

And today..

It is 8 am. You are rushing to office, scrambling to find your bus or busy answering the driver's call just so you do not miss your cab and are forced to go to office on your own. You reach work, go about your day and leave office at around 6:30 pm, again the same rigmarole, the same routine with the buses and the cabs. And then, the TV, the couch and the comfort of your pillow.

Have you ever taken out a moment and thought? You are at a place now, where you don’t see a bird, or do not want to. Too busy in your schedule to even notice whether they still fly overhead or are flying saucers orbiting the planet. You are too old to admire those little flying creatures, those species we learnt about once at school, learning how to distinguish one from the other, from the way their beaks look, or the color of their feathers, or their peculiar flight. Too old to admire what once fascinated us and kept us hooked for hours, finding place on our canvasses and drawing boards.

But they, on their part still do exist, still do go about their reckless ways, still fiercely protect their little ones. But from who?

Our children are too busy deciphering the new windows interface, exploring (flaunting) their playstations, Wiis and Xboxes, studying hard with thick spectacles to beat that kid at school who might just come first this time. They're too busy trying to get ahead, or trying to stay where they are, to notice what lies above. They don’t bring home feathers that they almost stepped on and ask their Mom, just what bird it might be, but bring home pamphlets of animation or computer language courses. They don't complain about a bird dirtying their shirt, but complain about an OS crashing, a speaker not working, an internet connection not streaming fast enough or a new pair of Reebok zigs they are not able to find in a red color.

We on our part have too much in the day to tend to, to be able to see an injured broken wing lying by the road, simply because you have an important discussion in the cab with the other equally frustrated employees on how Bangalore traffic is out of bounds and how the city is bursting at its seams. In the late afternoon, you get out for a fag, but are too busy finding out who said what on the floor and who's rating is definitely a 'Poor', to notice a pair of eyes perched a few steps away staring wantingly at the fountain by which you are sitting.

If you took a moment and looked up in the sky, you'd still see them as you once admired them in flight, as sparrows you once nursed back to health, as your once-upon-a-time friends, as playmates, as fellow-earthlings. Yes, something has changed for us, in us, but the world around perhaps has not. Its stood witness to mankind's progress, gently smiling at the fact that he does not really care enough about whether all wings reach home safe in a storm, or whether all nests have safe branches.

If only we cared enough to remember…to relive…to notice...

Why would you, unless.....?

I know that's what you'll do, stab me where it will hurt,

no grief in your eyes, as you see the blood spurt.

You know how I am, I'll bleed to death in your quest,

But it's a game you must win, you will ace this dirty conquest.

So you'll still do everything you can, to break me,

To see me begging for mercy, begging to be free.

Free from the pain you give me, free from this heartache,

There's just so much it can bleed, just so much it can take.

It's broken in an instant, with you having walked all over,

Bitter with pain, pangs noone can ever discover.

Drowned within it's own depth, it's scared to look up,

Broken by a joke for fun, a really unfair setup.

Vowing it will get better, without you by my side,

A day will come reckoning, it will get calmer, the tide.

You'll cry someday too, in agony and despair,

Wishing you hadn't trampled wild, realising what's fair.

I won't be around to see it, nor care enough to console,

You nearly killed my heart, its peace as you then stole.

I hope not to get more bitter, more torn into pieces with this pain,

Till someday you wish it were just a bad dream, try to turn it all back...In vain!

Lost in the Deluge

Loud claps of thunder, a dark red sky,

I wake up from my trance, as lightning flashes me by,

Large drops of rain, fighting for space,

Disturbing my thoughts, cutting them loose from the chase.

The soft whispering wind, grows heavier and louder,

My wavering thoughts are now crushed to a powder.

Perched against the downpour, with arms wide open,

I try to grab my mind, but my heart it’s stolen.

Carrying love from far away, a lonely distant voice,

Touches my lonely soul, while drowning all the noise.

A heart that feels my pangs, asking me to feel its pain,

It’s as broken as I am, tears running in each vein.

Refusing to succumb to the deluge, my eyes are shut tight,

I feel nothing but numb pain, the dark eclipses all light.

Shattered into pieces, a heartache we share,

Soft as fur inside, an iron mask on the outside we wear.

The rain that breaks our peace brings us together tonight,

We carelessly succumb to the call, giving in without a fight.

Hearts that cry alone, but smile as one in the rain,

Our incompleteness begins to fill, the sorrow too will wane.

I breathe softly but surely as I mock the thunderous sound,

I’ve lost my heart to this voice, but a new strength I have found.

The night cries itself to sleep, as the rain gives in,

Densely dark around, with a single flame burning within.

Do you Stop Loving?

Long and dreary, the road stretches on.
A warm dusk it is, but the warmth in your heart is gone.

There's pain in your eyes, disbelief on your face,
That dream has escaped, you've lost the chase.

Dragging your feet, trudging along,
There's no end in sight, you're no more that strong.

The shadow of your past trails close behind,
The wounds are still fresh, they have been unkind.

Desperate with hope, it nudges you to answer,
Will the pain ever go? Does it ever get better?

You've tried to go back, you've spent hours crying,
Your love seems like a lie, but do you stop loving?

Troubled Bliss

Warm like a flame, with the blue chill of ice,
You get sucked into it anyways, no chance of a choice.

It's the perfect paradox, the refute of the sane,
The irony of living, the refuge of the insane.

Silence gets deafening, clamorous noises begin to soothe,
You see what doesn't exist, defying every truth.

The rumble of a rollercoaster ride, with the calm of the still seas,
You need sleep for that sweet dream, yet sleep is what will tease.

Waking up to the sunrise, that brand new day,
but sulking at each sunset, wanting to melt in each ray.

No pain more numbing, yet no emotion sweeter than this,
Love will drive those senses wild, to a state of troubled bliss!

Ever been in love?

If there is a feeling that can come close to the innocent exhilaration of running in the open with your arms free as a child, it is the feeling of being in love.

For the first time, for the millionth time, it doesn't matter, it's still the same.
The magic does surprisingly recur.

Maybe with a lesser intensity, maybe as ephemeral as a bubble, but it does happen!

Everything...

The butterflies in the stomach, that constant whirlpool inside of you, waiting to explode, the goose-flesh, those billion thoughts that steal every waking moment, that hopeless attempt to try not to smile, the magic is always there!

Its hard to ignore it, harder to escape from it and hardest to contain it, but you somehow do, for awhile atleast, until the madness takes over!

Till then all you can do, is ride the wave, enjoy the spurt while it lasts, till by a poor stroke of luck, dark reality hits you hard between the eyes...till the magic fades away!

Some things never heal

In a dream, so pristine and tranquil,
She lay unperturbed, unaware of the still.
Asleep to the world, awake to her dream,
The trance would soon break, soon she would scream.
The heartless world won't cease to cause harm,
Deaf to her cries, ignorant to her pain, but in themselves, Calm.
It's been too often now, it'd been too long,
She still crumbles easily, not even close to growing strong.
The blood flows thicker, tears don't see an end,
It's happened again, this heart will never mend.
Time makes her unwary now, soon she will sleep,
waiting to be re struck, in pain , back to her trance so deep.

The Sweetest Pain

In love again, yet so distraught,
The lie is out, I have been caught.
Its more than still waters, running ever so deep,
Dreams are real, I’ve lost the art of sleep.
Like a million echoes, struggling to come out,
This seems like ‘it’, not just a passing bout.
Hard to hide, harder to contain,
It aches deep within, but is yet the sweetest pain!

GOA-THE WEATHER, THE WAVES AND THE WARMTH

Rain lover, beach lover, insect lover, they’re all here,
Small roads, long rides, no traffic, no cacophony you’ll hear.

Old buildings soaked in time, with a story to narrate,
Of an era gone-by, of people who did stand and wait.

Narrow lanes, leading into the waters, pure riverbanks, virgin shores,
Calm waves, soft ripples, sand between your toes,

Enigmatic, yet quaint; so delightfully secure,
You can try as hard as you want, you can’t escape the lure.

Of sunrises you wouldn’t ever dream of,
Of the most glowing sunsets, leaving you in awe.

A malady when you arrive, a drug when you leave,
A cure for the broken heart, a soft touch when you grieve.

Goa’s all that, yet so much more,
Obvious yet oblivious, awake to the present, yet glowing in the look it once wore.

Growing on you, deceiving you all along,
Till you forget where you came from and begin to belong.

You know you're in love when?

1. You wear his favourite perfume while hoping its not the only reason, he'll want to come closer.

2.He's left town, but his number's still on speed dial and you keep calling hoping to hear his voice.
3.You cant seem to fall asleep without that magical Goodnight conversation even if it just lasts 15 seconds.

4.His favourite song plays in your head even when its dead quiet around.

5.It gives you a mild satisfaction, just to know that he breathes somewhere just the way you do.

6.You wake up before him, but wait for his voice to get you out of bed.

7.The smell of his cologne in the air, makes you frantically look around for him.

8.You cant help wonderin how cute he'd look in that shirt you saw on the mannequin.

9.When he ends up burning it instead of baking it, and you still think its the best thing you've eaten.

10.When you're with him, its so easy to smile even though its been twenty minutes since either of you spoke.

Does Life actually Go on?

The ANGST,
Of the lost touch of a loving father,
Of the tears she shed wishing it were all a bad dream,
Of the man she dreamt of, who would never be,
Of the heartbreak from a man, who almost was,
Of a heart too scared to love.
Will remain untold...

The MEMORIES,
Of the warmth in each dream,
Of the genuine effort to reform,
Of the blood trickling down free like water,
Of the consummate pain and bitterness,
Of the fear of self-destruction,
Will never Unfold.

Life goes on, mechanically,
For the millions who don't know her,
For the millions who never will,
For those who once loved her but left,
For those whom she loved and died within in wait,
For the man, she needed the most.

Life does go On.

Why are we Sad?

Its because we're scared.

We're scared that good times are over for good.
We're scared of screwing up again.
We're scared of someone screwing us over again.
We're scared of trusting someone because we're so stuck in this illusory conviction that they're all the same.
We're scared to believe that there's an end to the tunnel, because we're too busy brooding over the dark interiors.
We're scared of breathing, because we're all going to die someday, why wait?

Thats what happens when we're sad. We resign ourselves to this all-pervasive conquering fear. The fear to simply and merely live.

The fear to move on. Thats why we're sad.

Pearl Harbor

I don't know how the thought of writing about this never occurred to me. Despite the million times I've watched it, the zillion tears I've shed for it, the many more times that I've craved for a love like this.

Everything about this movie gives me goose-flesh. The plot, the music, the wonderful visuals, but most of all, the love-story. The entwined lives of Danny, Evelyn and Rafe. I couldn't perhaps ever believe in love like Rafe again because I grew to believe things like that don't exist. I don't know a soul today who could tell his love all in the midst of feeling betrayed and cheated, " When I was lying half-dead, I made a deal with God. If I could just see you one more time, I would never ask for anything again. And you know what I'll keep my word." Rafe's love is something that would remain in my memory as the perfect example of true love. Selfless, Giving, yet so content with just the feeling of loving someone so much.

Evelyn's love for Rafe, half the world away, is something else which is so beautiful. The amount of solace she finds in his letters. Images of her sitting by the sunset, while she writes to Rafe " Every night I watch the sunset and soak up the last ounce of heat from its long tired day and send it from my heart to yours." Such a patient kind of love. Distant, yet constantly bound by thoughts. Being alone, yet never truly in the sense of the word, because Rafe's love was constantly with her. Something I still look at and smile, admiring the love she bears for him.

Evelyn and Danny's love-story is reminiscent of two teenagers falling in love. Torn by grief with the news of Rafe's death, finding complete solitude in the pathos within each other's hearts. Willingly letting each other pick up the broken pieces of their lives, trying to put it all back together, but silently worrying that war doesn't crush their lives again. So much of togetherness, in common pain, so much of love in the pangs of loneliness.

And finally, as death did do apart Rafe and Evelyn, it did bring them back together. Danny's death while trying to save Rafe seems like fate wanting Rafe to be with the woman he loved and reason he lived, for the rest of his life. It seems ironic when Evelyn tells Rafe before he and Danny leave for war, " I'll never stop loving you, but I'm going to give my heart to Danny. But I also can never look at another sunset without thinking of you.", Because the last scene of the movie, shows Rafe and Evelyn walk into the sunset together, as two lovers, as a family, as two people in whose hearts Danny will live forever.

Pearl Harbor, the movie, for me, will remain this ode to love, though it may for many others, simply remain as a recreation of what made America join the war. Every piece of music by Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for the movie leaves me with the image of the warm sunset. Of the love these three characters bore for each other. Of the kind of love, I wish I ever get to experience someday. Simple, Innocent, True, COMPLETE!

Who I was and Who I am..

Two smiles I wear in quiet denial,
Two lives I lead in silent oblivion.

Each blow of time lands me in fresh pain,
obvious to the world, yet to myself a mystery I remain.

Crushed embers burn my path, as I walk past the rubble of yesterday,
The sun shines on brighter, but time seems to have frozen today.

I've cried over my wounds, as I saw them bleed me dry,
A part of me drowned each time, at a moment that person did die.

The seeds of time sowed a new existence, a new life,
I live with the hope of a happier tomorrow, I will break free from the strife.

Each breath is calmer, this is a living, not a quest for survival,
This is what they are, the pain and the hope are these smiles of denial.

Whats that pain in the heart called?

Ever felt like that?

That numbing..heart-wrenching feeling in the middle of your chest that sort of kills you with each breath you take?

Its cold. Its deathly. But its there. Inside of you. Calling out to you. Begging you to fix it. To do something to stop the pain. While you are too absorbed in the misery of living, drowned in tears oblivious to these calls from within.

Thats what it is. Thats exactly heartbreak. Heartache. Whatever you want to call it. Thats what it is.

It happens you know. In most cases, when you love someone way more than you love yourself. There goes that feeling of doing something for yourself because in true Bryan Adams style everything you do, you do it for him!

And yet, at times whatever you do, is not sufficient. It falls short. Your love falls that tad short of his expected standards from his prior experience(which you now wish you could wipe off the face of this earth with utmost brutality). And when you do feel ineligible to be loved back in return like you expect to, you squirm back into the realms of your self and let your feelings be thrown away like grains of sand as each wave of criticism wipes out their existence.

And then again, when that pain spurts off a new kind of feeling, of insecurity, of despair, of helplessness and you cringe and scream and retort with aggression, you turn out to be the bad one. He wouldn't ever understand that you can't suddenly forget the past and when it hits you right between the eyes, its bound to hurt. Forget him. For a fact, not a soul in this world can experience the helplessness and the anger all the same time that that foolish heart of yours feels.

Its a pity. Its a grave pity that the heart that wants to love is told to not to love. A heart that wants to give is accused of accusing. A heart that wants a future is told to get over the past, when the past is dictating our present.

The future can never be bright for two people who choose to delve in the past. Who choose to bring back bad memories of may I add bad people and jeaopardise the present. How can these people even make the mistake of dreaming of a future together when they can't get past their simple flaws? How does that work? It doesn't and never will.

Time lost is lost forever and doesn't return ever. Bad memories are Bad news for the present and great news for a relationship-epitaph if thats what two people want out of a battle of who did what and who has wronged who more.

But in the middle of all this, the heart of this dreamer has cried out loud. Because it is broken into as many countless parts as it cant imagine itself. This is an ode. An ode to a lover, a dreamer, thrown in the sea of reality who stopped dreaming..Just because it hurts too much to dream. Because some dreams are never meant to come true! They just die their own silent deaths with each tick on the clock. And life surprisingly, still goes on.

THE BROKEN SPELL

Broken and crushed I lie here in wait,
I'm tired of this suffering, the pain and sweat.

Roses aren't for me, I can picture a wreath,
I'm stifled now, its getting hard to breathe.

I'm tired of being this way, I cant even cry,
My screams are drowned, my tears are now dry.

I'm tired of their whines, their endless grudges,
I'll live my way, not on borrowed crutches.

I'm not a toy, or a blob of clay,
Then why should I bend their way?

They say I do not feel, they fail to see me bleed,
Trying to turn me into one of them, its just their greed.

I want to walk my way, find my own religion,
If I fall and fail, it'll be my own decision.

Let me walk to my grave, don't carry me there,
I want to kiss my death, not die in despair.

I have a million options, let me be the one to choose,
I'm not their hell hole, their object of abuse.

I see a distant light, the door is open,
I will be myself, the spell is now broken!

My First Love

Some love stories start with the rain bringing two lovers together throught the forces of nature locking them together in the warmth of a rain-soaked embrace, while some end in the rain with two lovers walking away, drenched in nature's fury. My love story however strange it may seem, IS the rain. Yes, I am in love with the rain and will make no two bones to admit that it is indeed my first love and will probably be that eternal love.

As a child, I often marvelled at the unbound bounty of the clouds and how they managed to soak the earth. I have memories of tricking my mom into believing that I'm only watching the rain while I would actually plot and plan to stealthily slip out into the backyard and stare at the sky till the raindrops hurt my eyes, hard enough to make me give up. Looking for icicles, putting them in my mouth and squirming my eyes with the freeze. Running helter-skelter in the rain to find shelter when I was out playing just a little too far from home. These are the small pleasures of my childhood, obviously bound and enveloped by the one thing that refused to change and grow up, The RAIN!

Today, the rain doesn't bring and wondrous amazement to my eyes as it did back then. Instead, it brings a twinkle to my eyes, a sparkle no other season could. Off-late I've also realised that the rain makes me think of love more than any other time. It is this downpour that makes my mind rewind to the dreams of a perfect love in my growing-up years.

Silly to some people maybe, but it still makes me wonder how insanely romantic it would be to take a walk through a garden holding hands, fighting the rain. Or even how great it must feel to just sit with someone I love out in the patio, sipping a cup of hot coffee tinged with the flavour of the rain. Or how perfect would it be to sit in a car with the top up at the edge of a cliff and feel like you were floating on the dark dense clouds.

Also, I feel that there's no fragrance ever made that could come even close to the scent of the first fresh raindrops on a lonesome, emaciated, blistering piece of earth. Arden and Estee could turn their researching centres upside down but no fragrance can ever appeal as much as the priceless yet invaluable scent of the first rain.

I see people shiver and run for cover when it rains. I still cannot fathom why! Perhaps, its just me to whom the cold rain manages to bring a warmth in each raindrop. Warmth of perhaps a love, from an unknown land. Or maybe from the skies above, from those who left me lookin up at the clouds for them.

Charlie Chaplin once said that he loved walking in the rain because then noone would see him cry. I personally haven't felt anything close to that and I don't think I ever can because it has been the rain that has given me enough reason to stop crying and smile to myself when life has been at its ebb.

That's the kind of love-story I have with the rain and that's why I call it my first love. A force that magically wraps itself around me when I want to cry. Someone who's voice is music to my ears and who's scent drives my senses wild. My childhood sweetheart, a warm flame on a cold night. Someone who's intricately bound in both my dreams and my memories. That is the kind of stuff true love is made of. I'm just glad to be a part of it, to be insanely in love with the one thing I know that neither time, nor death, nor the past, nor any other force can conquer, the love of my life, The RAIN.

Why the bizarre name?

Perspicacity-Fancy word! One of the last words I ever thought I'd use to describe myself. Thankfully that 'distorted' word prefixes it.

The wish to look at everything in a clear manner yet the human quality that makes the whole point so distorted!